I wanted to model my life after a rainstorm:

To embody the excitement and freshness and screaming vitality
of a torrential rain on a hot summer day
To show off my clouds and shout out with thunder
My worries and sorrows, my failures and fears.
To laugh and cry and run and shriek
With windstorms and hailstorms and post-summer sleet.

But most of all,
I wanted to flash through people's lives like lightning
So, so bright and unexpected and beautiful and alive
That they held their breath and scanned the skies
For just one more crackle of energy and excitement
That makes them question their accepted lives.

If nothing else, I'll be petrichor
The soft, sweet reminder of new life to come.
That puts a smile on people's faces
As they, for once, stop, and breathe,
And remember that
They, too,
Are
Alive.